Big was slightly different though, and all the better for it. It may still have featured a magical object (in this case a fairground fortune telling machine called Zoltar Speaks) and a child making a wish to be grown up, but in this case the child doesn’t swap bodies with anyone else. Instead, they wake up the next day to find themselves fully grown.

The child in question in Big was a lad named Josh, who suddenly becomes a 30 year old man with the mind of a 13 year old. Josh first runs away from home when his mother thinks he is a kidnapper who has taken her son, and having nowhere else to go ends up at his school where he manages to convince his best friend, Billy, that he actually is Josh.

Billy helps Josh to get a job at a toy company as a data entry clerk, but it isn’t long before he befriends Mr. MacMillan, the head of the company and gets promoted to an executive job as a toy designer! This all happens because Josh happens to be talking to the boss one day in a toy store, when he comes across a giant floor piano, and in a very memorable scene Josh and Mr. MacMillan play Chopsticks together on the keyboard. Apparently the pair really did play the tune for real, as is evidenced by the very occasional wrong note.

In his new found position of responsibility Josh attracts the romantic attentions of Susan, one of his coworkers, and it isn’t long before he finds himself spending more time with Susan than with his friend Billy, who starts to feel annoyed that his friend has forsaken him.

Before long though the pressures of adult life start to weigh heavily on Josh, and he soon longs to return to being a child. Luckily Billy has located the Zoltar machines new location, so all it takes is for Josh to make one more wish so he can return to his mother and his less stressful life as a regular kid.

Big is probably the best example of this genre from the Eighties, and believe me, there were quite a number of similar films released around this time. I’ll leave you with a clip of the afore mentioned piano scene.

However you won’t have to wait that long if you want a pair of the rather cool Nike MAG trainers that Marty McFly wore in the aforementioned film, assuming you have a spare $2,000 (minimum) lying around that is.

Nike have made a limited edition run of 1200 pairs of the shoes, and although they may not be self lacing like the ones in the film, they do look identical, and even have light up soles and illuminated Nike logo across the front.

But the best thing about all this is that it’s Nike’s way of raising some money for charity, hence the steep asking price. Nike are giving the proceeds to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, which couldn’t be a more apt cause given that Fox is himself a sufferer of the disease.

They are being offered for sale on eBay, with 150 pairs being made available every day. You’ll need to be quick though, as this all started a few days ago, and there are now just 600 left! Head over to the Back 4 The Future website for more details or to nikemag.ebay.com if you want to bid on a pair.

For your viewing pleasure then, check out this rather nice quote laden advert featuring Christopher Lloyd as Doc Brown…

…and here’s a bit from Marty McFly himself. If I had the spare cash, I’d certainly buy a pair…

Before re-watching the film, my over riding memories of it were that it was a bit like Star Wars (like so many films were back then), and that it starred John Boy Walton (Richard Thomas) and had some space cowboy character in it.

So I popped the disc into my player to begin my journey of rediscovery. Up pop the menus accompanied by a piece of music that at once felt stunningly familiar to me, and there’s a picture of John Boy and a cowboy character. So far, so well remembered then.

The film begins with the peaceful inhabitants of the planet Akir being invaded by the evil Sador (John Saxon) and his Malmori warriors. Sador tells them that unless they bow down to his demands he will destroy the planet with his Stellar Converter (Death Star anyone?), and to prove his intent goes about killing a few innocents just for good measure.

Most of the Akira believe they are doomed, but young Luke, sorry, John B… I mean Shad, says that he will take the planets only space craft, powered by a computer named Nell, on a mission to go and recruit some mercenaries to help the Akira defend themselves.

Shad’s first stop is at a space station where he is hoping to get his first recruits. He meets a young woman named Nanelia who repairs androids. He is taken to see her father, who is now more machine than man, who hopes to keep Shad there as a mate for his daughter. Nanelia takes pity on Shad and allows him to escape, before also deciding that she will join his cause.

Good to his word, Shad manages to enrol further help including the afore mentioned space cowboy character (who is actually just called Space Cowboy and is played by The A Team’s George Peppard). Other members of his team are Gelt, an assassin played by The Man From U.N.C.L.E Robert Vaughn, and Nestor, who are a strange race of clones who share a single consciousness – an intriguing Science Fiction idea.

Shad and his mercenaries help defend the planet when Sador attacks. Both sides take heavy casualties during the initial battles which take place both in the space around Sador’s ship and on the ground, with Space Cowboy leading the charge against the ground troops.

Both sides then take time to regroup and lick their wounds, but it isn’t long before Sador decides to roll out his Stellar Converter, so everyone springs into action to defend Akir or die trying. Sadly most end up taking the latter path, with the only new recruit to definitely survive being Nanelia.

I have to say that watching this film again felt like a new experience for me as I really didn’t remember anything from it at all. The plot was based on the western The Magnificent Seven (which coincidentally also starred Robert Vaughn), which in turn was based on the classic Japanese story The Seven Samurai. It also borrows heavily from Star Wars, what with the hero being a young farmhand, the presence of a planet destroying weapon and the Space Cowboy character being very much like Han Solo.

The film came out in 1980 and was quite a low budget affair. Whilst this does show to a certain extent the cast do an excellent job, there are some very funny moments (like when the Nestor sample one of Space Cowboy’s hot dogs) and the effects aren’t all that bad either, perhaps due in part to James Cameron (yes, that James Cameron) being the art director on the film. Indeed they were good enough, as was the sound track, that a lot of the space shots were even reused wholesale in another film called Space Raiders (nothing to do with the similarly named crisps).

The Last Starfighter is best known for being one of the first films to extensively use computer graphics to provide the special effects, and it was always this film and Tron that were the standard bearers for many years. Whilst a modern games console could easily recreate graphics of the same quality today in realtime, back then this was a new technique and the end results were the state of the art.

A quick plot recap then. Alex Rogan is a teenager who lives and works on a trailer park in back-of-nowhere America. He’s bored with his life and desperately wants to leave to go to University and take his girlfriend Maggie with him. The only thing he has to occupy his time is an arcade game called Starfighter.

Alex becomes quite adept at the game, which it turns out is actually a training simulator for a real space fleet called the Rylan Star League, who are at war with the evil (of course) Ko-Dan Armada. Alex is whisked away in a space craft (which looks stunningly like a DeLorean with a big chunky extension on the back) by a chap name Centauri and is told he has been chosen to become a real Starfighter.

Alex is shocked by all this, and asks to be returned home. Whilst Centauri takes him back, the Ko-Dan Armada launch an attack which kills all the other Starfighters.

Back on Earth Alex is surprised to find the Centauri had replaced him with a robotic double so that he wouldn’t be missed, and is even more surprised when an alien hitman tries to kill him. He therefore returns to become the Last Starfighter and help defeat the Ko-Dan Armada.

Whilst the computerised special effects are what the film is most famous for, the more traditional make up effects are generally very good too. Whilst some of the aliens look a bit naff (I’m thinking particularly of the bug eyed alien hitman, who’s mouth is above it’s eyes) most look quite realistic looking. In particular Grig, who becomes Alex’s navigator, has a great reptilian look but still manages to convey a lot of emotion, whilst the prune like aliens of the Ko-Dan Armada are also quite interesting to look at.

All in all I’m glad I watched it. It took me back to a time when I used to look forward to the video rental shop finally getting some big Hollywood blockbuster in that I was desperate to see but which had been on at the cinema a year or two previously.

Technically the film probably slots into the romantic comedy genre, but given that the spoken thoughts of the youngster were what provided most of the films funny moments, it is easy to overlook the fact that the film did actually have a plot.

Mollie Jensen (Kirstie Alley) is an accountant who finds herself pregnant after having an affair with one of her clients, Albert (George Segal). Despite promising to leave his wife and help bring up the child, Albert ends up breaking Mollie’s heart when she discovers him with another woman (and not his wife either).

She is so angry that she storms off, but then goes into labour, so hails a cab driven by a guy called James (John Travolta), who rushes her to hospital and is then mistaken by the hospital staff as being the father of the baby, and ends up being Mollie’s birthing partner. Mollie gives birth to a baby boy, who she names Mikey (and who’s thoughts are voiced by Bruce Willis).

Time goes by, and Mollie is coming to terms with being a single parent, when she discovers that James has been using her address in order to keep his grandfather in a local nursing home. James convinces Mollie to let him keep his grandfather in the home in exchange for becoming a babysitter.

As you can probably guess from this rather contrived sounding plot, James and Mollie end up becoming a couple, and the film ends with a scene where we see that Mikey is about to get a little sister.

The 1990 sequel, Look Who’s Talking Too, sees both Mikey and his sister, Julie, voicing their thoughts (Julie’s voice being provided by Roseanne Barr), whilst in 1993 Look Who’s Talking Now came along which saw the kids able to talk now, so instead we have Danny DeVito and Diane Keaton providing the voices for the families pet dogs. Me thinks that last one was a case of over egging the pudding somewhat.

So, I watched it the other night, and I have to admit I almost, almost, switched off after the first 15 minutes or so, because what I was watching was failing to live up to my expectations. Sure there were a few bits that made me smile, like the tannoy announcers arguing about which coloured zone was which, but everything seemed far too serious at this point.

Maybe that was the idea though, as when Airplane! was first released in 1980 it was pretty much the first film of its kind (I’m struggling to think of anything similar that came before it, though I’m sure there must be something) so perhaps it was intentional, to ease audiences in for what was to come later.

Signs that things were heading back where I expected them to be soon came though, when Ted Striker goes to buy a plane ticket and is asked if he wants smoking or non-smoking. He replies that he wants smoking, and is then handed a paper ticket which, yes, you’ve guessed it, is literally emitting smoke in his hand.

Things started to improve also when Leslie Nielsen finally appeared. If there was ever an actor to be linked to this type of film it is the now, sadly, late Mr. Nielsen. I admit I gave a little cheer when he appeared, and from then on Airplane! suddenly became what I expected it to be from the beginning. The running gags I had been waiting for started to appear, including Nielsen’s “Don’t call me Shirley” line, and the “…but that’s not important right now” jokes.

By the end of the film I was glad I hadn’t switched off earlier, and my expectations had been met, and even exceeded, as I had forgotten all about the bonkers Johnny, the air traffic controller who constantly comes up with inane comments about things the other characters say or do.

I also liked the joke about Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who played the co-pilot Roger Murdock. I didn’t know who he was, but assumed he must have been a basketball player when he’s quizzed by the young boy who comes to visit the cockpit. Sure enough, he was a famous basketball player, and when he passes out later in the film is dragged from his chair wearing basketball kit.

At the time the film was released it worked so well because most of the actors, including Leslie Nielsen, Peter Graves, Lloyd Bridges and Robert Stack, were serious actors and not known for comedy roles, and indeed in the case of Nielsen the movie became rather a turning point in his career.

Now, the film is regarded as a classic and I can see why. If I’m completely honest I didn’t enjoy it as much as, say The Naked Gun (which also came from the same creators – David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker) but since it was the first of its kind it should be recognised, as without it we wouldn’t have had a whole slew of films made in the same absurd manner.

The film was released in 1982 and stars Aileen Quinn as the titular Annie. The film is a musical and was based on a stage musical from the late Seventies, which in turn was based on a newspaper comic strip Little Orphan Annie which dates back to the 1920’s. Annie is an orphan with a curly mop of very orange hair. She lives in an orphanage run by Miss Hannigan, who makes the lives of Annie and the other orphans an unpleasant one.

One day though, Annie’s life changes for the better, when the secretary of Oliver Warbucks (Albert Finney), a hard headed billionaire, turns up at the orphanage looking for a child to live with Warbucks for a week as a publicity stunt. Annie is chosen, and whilst Warbucks is not best pleased (he would have preferred a boy), as time goes by Annie starts to melt his cold heart, and eventually Warbucks adopts Annie as his own daughter.

Whilst happy at leaving the orphanage, Annie has always been convinced that she is not actually an orphan, and that her mother and father are still out there somewhere. Warbucks decides he will try to help Annie out, and makes an appeal for her parents to come forward.

Many people decide to come forward, thinking they can claim some of Warbucks millions in the process, but they are all turned away as fakes. That is until one pair come along with a convincing story, and Warbucks must sadly say goodbye to his new daughter, thinking she has been reunited with her real parents.

These new parents for Annie turn out to be Miss Hannigan’s criminal brother, Rooster (Tim Curry), and his girlfriend Lily. Luckily though, Annie’s orphan friends had over heard the pair plotting with Miss Hannigan at the orphanage, so they make an escape and go to tell Warbucks, who races to the rescue.

Annie is a fine family film featuring lots of memorable songs including “It’s a Hard Knock Life“, “You’re Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile” and “Tomorrow“. The cast all give great performances, especially the young orphan girls who sing and dance extremely well given their young ages.

Personally, my favourite version (and apologies to the Muppets because I did like their version too) is the 1988 film Scrooged, starring Bill Murray as the Scrooge like Frank Cross. Whilst it changes some details of the story to bring things up-to-date (for example, Frank Cross is the boss of a TV Station, rather than a money lender, or whatever Ebenezer was supposed to be) the basic premise of the story survives intact.

Frank’s TV company is attempting a world’s first for their Christmas extravaganza. A live transmitted version of A Christmas Carol. Frank’s motives in this are more driven by money and greed than by presenting a good Christmas message. He had a bit of a miserable childhood, so doesn’t really take much interest in Christmas celebrations.

Frank is first visited by the ghost of his long dead boss, who warns him that he is to be visited that evening by three more ghosts who will show him his past, present and future, in an effort to make him change his ways. Frank, unsurprisingly perhaps, believes he has just been hallucinating, but he begins to change his mind as the ghosts start to pay him visits.

The Ghost of Christmas Past is a rough talking, slob like taxi driver, who drives Frank around with little apparent care for safety whilst revisiting Frank’s past. Next comes the Ghost of Christmas Present, my personal favourite, who might look all sweetness and light, but packs a pretty mean punch. Finally, there is the Death like Ghost of Christmas Future. Needless to say Frank changes his ways and becomes a better person after all of this.

The film is most definitely a comedy, but it swings from being quite light hearted and slapstick through to being quite dark and forbidding at times, and it moves along at quite a pace. It may have a bit of a cheesey ending with a big song and dance number, but this is balanced out with some of the dry comments made by Frank, which show that he may not have quite lost the entirety of his old self, rather he has found the happier side of his self that he had lost up until now.